What is an EIC?
The Energy Identification Coding scheme (EIC) provides unique identification codes to market participants and other entities active within the EU's Internal Energy Market (IEM). It is widely used in the Electronic Document Interchange, as well as EU Regulations for transparency and integrity of Energy Market (EC 543/2013, EC1227/2011 etc).
EICs are supplied and managed either by the Local Issuing Offices (LIO) or by the Central Issuing Office (CIO). The CIO supplies and manages EICs for LIOs, market areas, interconnectors and electricity system operators. It also maintains the Central EIC repository (EICs used within the Internal European Market) and ensures that no duplicate entries exist.
A LIO is authorized by ENTSO-E to supply and manage EIC codes to any market participant or resource object within either the Energy Internal European Market or a local/ country market. It respects a number of well-defined rules to ensure homogeneous code allocation and maintains a list of locally issued EIC codes.
The list of websites run by the CIO and registered LIOs can be found here: Energy Identification Codes.
Who Needs an EIC?
As it has always been the case, the EIC continues to be mandatory for all shipper companies. Furthermore, any organization whose main address is in an EU country or an Energy Community country must provide an EIC upon registration. The list of the countries included in this treaty can be found here.
However, with respect to the AggregateEU service, an exemption from providing an EIC can be granted in extraordinary cases to companies acting as sellers on AggregateEU registered in countries outside the EU and the Energy Community Contracting Parties.
Regardless, though such an exemption is possible, we do encourage all users to apply for and provide an EIC. An EIC significantly expedites the registration process. Moreover, PRISMA does not guarantee that organizations which register without an EIC, may be asked to provide one to enable other services besides AggregateEU.
Aside from the aforementioned exception, failure to provide a valid EIC will lead to the rejection of your organization's registration.
How to apply for an EIC?
To receive an EIC, you must go through three main steps:
1. Market Participant Application: first, you must contact a LIO, submit the necessary documentation and request a Local or International EIC;
2. Validation, Verification and Allocation: the LIO then validates your credentials. Subsequently, the LIO checks whether an EIC does not already exist in the LIO and CIO databases based on the company information you provided. Lastly, the LIO issues the code and allocates it to your company.
3. Integration and Publication: the LIO then publishes the assigned EIC on its LIO webpage. In case of an International EIC code, the CIO ensures the required EIC consistency, integrates the EIC into the Central Repository and, finally, publishes it on a weekly basis.
You can find a more thorough explanation of the process here: Allocated EICs.